Gold and Crimson
by TheJSFFenix
Summary: A collection of loosely-connected oneshots about Kyoko and Mami, and their odd partnership. Not entirely faithful to the original series nor to "The Different Story". Could be considered a prequel to my last Madoka Magica story, "Last Night" if you squint hard enough.
1. Bad Dreams

She was sitting in the back of the car when it happened, exactly on the side which took the full force of the vehicle that T-boned them.

Between the ringing in her ears and the disorienting whiplash, it felt strange, almost surreal to her- This creeping wave of realization that the white sticks emerging from underneath her ruptured skin are, in fact, bones of her own legs snapped inward.

Blood. This red fluid was blood. She saw it all over the place, she felt it flow down her forehead. She felt it fill her mouth and drip from the edge of it.

Panic took hold. She wanted to run, but her seatbelt pinned her down in place like a vicious grip of death itself dragging her down. The girl reached to unbuckle it, but discovered her right arm dangling uselessly by her side, nothing more than a sack holding a smashed up skeleton.

Her parents were both out of her sight and reach. Never before had she felt so powerless and alone as now, trapped on this deathly silent crash site, in her soon-to-be coffin. An eternity seemed to pass, and she soon gave up the fight to get free, her strength trickling away as the world grew dark and blurry.

Something jumped into the wreckage, landing on the car seat next to her.

"I'm here to help you!" Said a little, fox-like creature, his white fur juxtaposed against the black and red interior like a light shining through the darkness. "Quickly, state your wish and make a contract with me!" It urged her, waving his white tail back and forth.

"I want... to live," She uttered weakly, spitting out a sea of crimson as she spoke.

* * *

Mami Tomoe awoke in her bed.

There was no wrecked car, no blood, no white fox. Just her heart racing and dry throat craving for water.

"That dream again..." she let out a sigh before getting out of bed and putting a dressing gown over her pajamas. The girl with golden hair about mid-back length, walked out of her bedroom, then downstairs onto the entrance floor before passing through the living room illuminated by the moonlight.

With her bare footsteps completely silent against the wooden floor, she entered the kitchen completely unnoticed by a certain red-haired girl. Said girl was also wearing her pajamas and currently eating cookies out of a metal jar with her back turned.

"Kyoko...?" She asked, in her half-awake state.

"Eek!" The red haired Magi almost jumped out of her skin, dropping the container with a loud thud. "I'm so sorry Mami-san, I swear I was hungry!" She started with the excuses while backing up against the kitchen counter. "I woke up and I couldn't take it anymore, I swear I had to take one!"

The other Magi just waved her hand and went past her.

Kyoko calmed down seeing she was not going to get an earful this time, and got a good look at her flatmate as they poured themselves a glass of water.

"You're so pale... is something wrong?"

"It's nothing, really," Gasped out Mami after downing it in one go.

"But your hands are shaking," Noticed her friend, growing more and more concerned. The Mami she knew had nerves of stainless steel, and to see her actually distressed was a rare sight indeed.

"It was just a... bad dream." The other Magi admitted after a while, looking at her quaking grip.

"What a coincidence..." muttered Kyoko under her breath, but just loud enough to hear.

"What was that?"

"Nah, nothing," Deflected the redhead. "What was it about?"

"Remember that time when you asked me what my wish was?" asked the blonde

"Yeah, but you said you don't want to talk about it."

"Did I ever tell you about my parents?" Mami asked again, leaning against the counter as well.

"Only that they died in a car accident long ago. Why are you asking me this?"

"I too was in that accident," she said. "My parents died on impact, and I would have bled out, if it wasn't for Kyubei jumping into the wreckage." She continued, her voice barely louder than a whisper and spiked with what to Kyoko seemed like complete indifference, "He offered me a contract, and I wished to live."

"I understand." Her flatmate nodded, feeling like nothing else would be appropriate to say in such a situation.

"No, you _do not _understand." The Magi replied instantly with a polite, yet firm tone. "I wished it for myself."

"Umm, that's a normal wish in that situation."

"You don't get it. I wished for myself. Only for myself..."

"Yes, but you didn't have time to think it through, right? In a situation like that-"

"That morning we had a fight" She interrupted her. "All over something irrelevant before we got into the car. We drove in silence the entire way because of it-"

"You and fighting? That ain't you, you're the kindest person I've ever known!" Kyoko denied immediately.

"See, growing up rich and with everything on your beck and call turns you into princess rather quickly. I was a spoiled brat that cared about nothing and nobody." She didn't raise her voice, not even for a moment, yet Kyoko could see it in her eyes and hear it in her way of speaking, the anger and contempt against self, buried deep inside. "I could have saved them, and I hate myself for it. It comes back to me every night, every night I'm back at the car and you know what? Nothing changes, no matter how hard I try."

The empty glass in her hand let out a quiet crack, a spiderweb spreading over its surface as she gripped it tighter and tighter.

"There, there, you'll cut yourself!" Kyoko quickly took it out of her hand and set it down.

Mami grew silent, staring at the floor as if she wanted to pierce through it.

Redhead put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath. "You loved them. You know you did. They knew it too. They would have understood."

"I killed them..." She whispered, her voice cracking.

"The one who killed them was the asshole who drove into you. You can't beat yourself up over that!" The Magi denied again. "Mami," The redhead resumed after another while passed with no answer. "I know that you could never hate anyone. You're not this kind of person."

The Magi wearing a dressing gown approached her slowly, before wrapping her arms around her and hugging her tightly

"What are you-" She began, but quickly bit her tongue when she felt tears soaking her pajamas. She carefully put her hands on her back, returning the hug. As soon as she did that, the girl collapsed in her arms, dragging her down. She grunted as she landed butt first, but still held her close.

A while passed as they sat on the cold kitchen floor, neither of them letting go.

"I just wish they still were here." Said Mami eventually.

"Me too. But it's only us now," replied Kyoko, hugging her even tighter.

_Me and you. _

_Two souls, lost to the world. _

_But that still makes two. _

_I'll be here for you, and you'll be here for me. _

_Always. _


	2. Coincidence

"Hey, how much for a quickie?"

Girl with the red hair stopped dead in her tracks. Her blonde partner walking alongside halted as well.

"Not worth it Kyoko." She grabbed her wrist, seeing as her hand balled into a fist. She saw this scenario repeat itself way too many times to not know what's coming next. "Let's just-"

The redhead broke the grip. Her golden eyes lit up, flashing through the darkness of the night as she headed towards the group.

There were four of them, leaning against a street wall. Leather jackets over black clothes, gelled up hair and band aids hiding the marks of tussles. One of them had a half-empty glass bottle in his hand. They were your typical delinquents, looking for trouble. Plenty of them in those parts of the city with its back alleys, few street lamps and almost absence of police patrols. To wander around here was like asking for trouble, but nowhere the Witches were so easy to find as here.

"You said something, punk?" Asked the Magi in light green hoodie and shorts, stopping before all four of them.

"I asked how much you take for a quickie." Repeated the one standing in the middle. He looked the part of a leader, being the only one to wear a white bandana with swear words scribbled all over.

"Too expensive for you." She shot back.

"Actually, I have 500 yen to spare." He deflected, the rest of the group roaring with laughter.

"But look at those legs, man! For those alone, I'd chip in 300 more!" Laughed the one to his right, wearing black sunglasses even in the middle of the night.

Enough was enough. In the blink of an eye, she closed the distance and sucker punched the leader right in the jaw before he could see it coming.

He stumbled back and his back slammed against the wall before sliding down to the ground. The rest of the group only watched in shock, as not a single one of them anticipated things to take such a turn.

But the Magi kept moving, and moved fast, kicking one of them on the side of their knee and sending him to the ground, before turning to his colleague and taking him down with a one-two punch to the liver and chin. As he too fell down she nimbly took away the bottle he held and threw it at the third member of this rowdy bunch. It landed dead on, hitting his head and bursting into a shower of cutting shards.

Ignoring his screams as he lay there, clenching his shredded face Kyoko calmly walked back to the first delinquent she knocked down. Remembering how he "complimented" her legs just a while ago she kicked him right in the ribs, then did it again and again, empowering every kick with magic for the maximum effect, just as she did for the previous strikes. He begged her to stop after one of them cracked, but the girl was just too far into the enjoyment to just leave it at that.

Mami watched on from a distance, noticing how the one her partner knocked down with the one-two picked himself up and was now in her blind spot, closing on her fast.

"Prendere!" She shouted, pointing at the delinquent. Many golden ribbons shot out from her sleeve, before throwing themselves to seize him by the waist. He began screaming like a child when she lifted him up, but not for long, for the force she threw him at the wall with had knocked the wind out of his lungs and him unconscious.

The sound of it caused Kyoko to look behind her. The spark in her eyes faded away, returning the irides to their normal, more subdued shade.

"Thanks for having my back." She said when they resumed their walk.

"That's the last time I'm helping you like that!" The blonde stated firmly, wagging a finger at her.

"Heh, that's what you always say, yet you always save me in the end." Shrugged off the redhead, showing her fanged teeth in a smile.

"I'm serious, Kyoko!" Insisted Mami. "Letting emotions run your head is a one-way street to nowhere good. Get that temper of yours in check." She added, reprimanding her like a teacher would do with a troublesome student.

"I'll be fine. By the way, it looked to me like you broke something in that punk, if not worse-"

"Don't change the subject!" Replied Mami angrily, stopping in place.

"Oh give me a break Mami." Sighed the red-haired Magi, pausing as well. "We did something good, didn't we? They won't think of harassing someone again for at least a month!"

"Just because it happened to have a good side effect doesn't mean it wasn't irresponsible." Mami crossed her arms, standing by her opinion.

"Coincidences rule the world." Kyoko smiled again, before resuming the walk down the street.

As she walked, she took out her phone and turned on the screen. _Hm, that's weird, _she thought, seeing how the clock shield on it read clear as day, an hour of 4 PM.

"Of course they do." Her partner sneered after a while, then resumed following her lead.


	3. Someday

A shot echoed in an abandoned building, turned via illusion into an interior of a large cheesecake, transforming leaking water into chocolate and the rubble laying on the ground into sweets.

The musket ball pierced the head of a doll-like Witch. The creature stood straight for a few seconds before crumpling onto her back.

So that's all? So much searching and walking, only to finish with a pull of the trigger?

Mami Tomoe stepped closer to inspect. Dead eyes focused on the ceiling and the mouth hung agape, as if the Witch itself was surprised with the outcome.

But to the Magi's surprise, the body shook lightly. This quickly turned into violent convulsions, before the head split itself, ripped apart by a giant black body of a snake emerging from the neck stump. It rose higher and higher, longer than the body that was supposed to hold it.

She stared it down like a deer in the headlights, too paralyzed with fear to move, even when it's head, with horns of red and blue dove for her. Opened the jaws of death, showing teeth of all shapes and sizes, ready to behead the girl in one chomp.

As the blonde stared into the abyss closing in, a red-tipped spear crashed through the top of the maw. A deafening roar of pain shook the place, as black blood spurted everywhere. The monster's head fell down to the ground, still struggling and wiggling like a worm, mad eyes with spiral irises fixated on the would-be victim the entire time.

Kyoko Sakura ripped out the weapon and jumped down next to her partner.

"Damn, I just about made it," She said, gasping for air. "Hey, Wake up Mami-san!" she snapped her fingers in front of her face.

"Th-Thanks," The other Magi snapped out of it, the reality of how close she came to dying hitting her like a ton of bricks.

"Get your head in the game or someday you'll lose it." The redhead patted her on the shoulder and headed towards the exit as the illusory lair collapsed around them.


	4. Stupid Idea

Old ash and dust fell down from the rafters of a burned down church, falling onto the blackened stone floor. Among the ruins, two girls sat back to back, leaning on each other as the first rays of the sunrise shone on them.

"Before I bleed out... You were right, this was a bad idea... Thanks for coming with me..." gargled out the girl in a red dress, holding a large cut on her throat.

"You'll live." The other Magi calmed her down. "If you can still speak it means the talons missed your jugular. Keep up the pressure and don't move your head. Blood will coagulate and magic will do the rest."

"It'd be a bad moment to find out I'm a haemophiliac." Kyoko tried to joke, but instead of laughter what came out of her mouth was more blood.

"Try not to speak, you're going to make it worse." Said Mami, and her partner fell silent.

She herself was now putting pressure on a wound on the left side of her torso. Those claws of the monster they just felled were razor sharp, and they pierced the reinforced corset she was wearing over her white shirt like it was nothing.

"We need to wait a few hours so that we can regenerate," Resumed Mami after a while. "Then we'll catch a bus back to the city and pass the school for today."

"Mhm," Nodded her partner, especially content with the last point.

That was the plan, yet at the same time, she wasn't sure she would live to see it. She was losing blood, lots of it and fast. Her healing magic seemed to be losing the race to close the gaping hole in her side, perhaps due to the magical nature of the wound. The chills and shivers she was getting now weren't a good sign either.

"Been through worse, no?" The blonde girl asked rhetorically, trying to get her mind off of it. "Remember that time when we hunted for that Witch in the sewers? We couldn't get rid of the smell for a week!" She chuckled. Yes, that case was definitely worse.

She knew it was a stupid idea. If something had managed to survive multiple stabs to the heart, being burned with fire, and partially buried, it's best to leave it alone. What point was there to hunt a Witch prowling somewhere in the middle of nowhere beyond the city limits?

It was like asking, no, begging for trouble. She should never have agreed. Then again, she knew how important it was for Kyoko. For her, this monster wasn't only out here, but rather inside her mind, constantly taking up her thoughts and keeping her up at night. It took everything from her, and as long as it lived she would never feel at peace.

It was only a matter of time before she would decide to do it on her own. She had to help her, even if it was going to be the last thing she would do. That's what friends do for each other, right?.

Except they don't. Not always. Was dying in this hellhole at the ass end of the world in the name of friendship even worth it?

Of course it was, why was she even pondering that? The red-haired Magi was the first and only person so far she could call a real friend. Without her, she would have just been alone again. Alone and permanently broken.

And with her and because of her, she would now be dead.

But that was just fear speaking for her. The self-preservation instinct pondering on what might have been, at the point where it clearly was all past.

Yes, it was. No use dwelling on it. Whatever was ahead, she would be ready for, not showing any fear and doing everything to bring both of them back home.

The girl behind her back went into a coughing fit, spitting out blood she was choking on, while the world before the blonde Magi eyes only kept growing darker and more blurred.

"And do you remember that time, when…?"


	5. Pride

_"PERFECT!" _flashed the caption on the screen. She put in another coin and selected a new song from the list.

This one she could ace even with her eyes closed, and that's what she decided she would do.

Music started playing, and soon the first words began accompanying the beat, getting her into the zone and guiding her feet.

_Maybe It's a dream? Maybe nothing else is real? _

_But It wouldn't mean a thing if I told you how I feel _

_So I'm tired of all the pain, all the misery inside _

_And I wish I could live feeling nothing but the night _

Kyoko Sakura was at this moment spending yet another long and lonely night in the city arcades, throwing away whatever change that had fallen into her hands (by chance or otherwise) among the blue lights that surrounded her.

Her de-escalation skills were - to put it bluntly - shitty. Killing Witches and other kinds of abominations with her female partner was easy, preferable even. What was hard were all the everyday situations resulting from sharing a flat. Everything could be done using her spear. It was, after all, a very versatile weapon. The only thing that couldn't be done with it however, was sitting on it.

In her mind, she saw it differently though, explaining to herself that Mami was simply a buzzkill that kept on nitpicking. None of those things she had a problem with have been the end of the world, so why be a prick about them?

_If I make another move _

_If I take another step _

_Then it all would fall apart. _

_There'd be nothing of me left _

They argued almost all the time when they weren't out patrolling, and for many reasons- most of which centered around the red-haired Magi. Midnight snacking, impulsive and irresponsible behaviour, leaving behind a mess and cheating off the other Magi on tests, which more often than not landed both of them in trouble.

Kyoko wouldn't of course take it in silence, often shooting back with statements along the lines of the one above, volleying creative insults she was never finding herself short of or just storming out without a word.

Talking issues out was overrated. To compromise would mean to waver. And one would have an easier time bending steel than challenging Kyoko's pride.

_If I opened up my eyes _

_There'd be no more turning back _

_'Cause I'd throw it all away _

_And it all would fade to black _

And that was how she ended up here, dancing to the songs she knew by heart and eating pocky just for the taste. In her book an ideal way to spend a night.

So far staying out of each other's horns proved the best solution. At dawn she will come back to the flat, opening the door with spare keys in her pocket. Mami will likely be fast asleep on the couch, where she dozed off reading a book and waiting for her. At breakfast both of them will pretend that nothing happened and later go out on a patrol, one thing where they cooperated flawlessly.

So far it worked every time. Why wouldn't it work now?

_PERFECT! _

She put in another coin.

Why worry about something that isn't going to happen?


	6. Blue

The setting sun shone through the large windows of the apartment, casting its rays on two sofas standing opposite each other, with a small glass table between them.

"Hey, Mami," Said a girl in light green hoodie laying on one of them and watching the ceiling.

The blonde Magi sitting across from her didn't respond, absorbed in her book. Something about an Owl Bridge.

"Hey, Mami!" She called out once again, now turning to face her.

"Yes?" Asked the other girl, but still didn't look at her.

"What's your favorite colour?"

"Are you bored?" Questioned back Mami.

"No, why? I'm just curious."

"Then start writing that essay we were given, or revise for that test tomorrow."

"Why? I'll just cheat that off you." Said the redhead, taking another chocolate cookie out of the bowl on the table.

"Yellow." The Magi sighed, unwilling to provoke another argument shortly before another patrol.

"And you know what's mine?" Asked Kyoko again, attempting to spark a longer conversation.

"Red?" The blonde guessed. Out of all the options this seemed to her like the most likely one.

"You think that because I have red hair and I wear a red dress?" Chuckled the other Magi.

"No, I actually quite like blue. Blue like the sea. Have you ever been to the seaside?"

"Once." answered Mami perfunctorily, still focused first and foremost on the text before her.

"I never got to go. Wish I did." said the red-haired girl, looking out the window. "I'd love to walk the beach, listen to the waves…" she began daydreaming. "Blue… blue is such a calm colour, isn't it?"

"Hmm, calmness is something _you _could use." remarked the other girl while turning a page.

"I'm a very calm person" pouted Kyoko.

"Yes, apart from those moments when you aren't."

The conversation foundered, and the room grew a little darker, as if a giant cloud had all of a sudden blotted out the sun.

Kyoko reached for another cookie, but surprisingly, her hand found nothing but an empty air that was now filling the bowl. But she could have sworn that just a second ago there were two more cookies there.

"You've been getting those dreams very often lately, haven't you?" The blonde Magi broke the silence, but her voice sounded strange now, akin more to a whisper than a normal speech.

"What do you mean?"

"Ever since you came back to Mitakihara you keep dreaming about us." she explained. "About all the things we used to do together, even those conversations we had all about nothing. Why are you so desperate to hold onto those moments?"

Kyoko sat up on the couch. Deep down she felt something strange. A faint sense of dread and confusion.

"I don't understand." She said.

"You're dreaming Kyoko. Everything here is but a dream." Replied Mami matter-of-factly, flipping another page.

"A dream? No, it's not a dream." Denied Kyoko. "This is reality."

"It's a dream."

"This is _not _a dream!" The redhead protested even harder.

"It's all your dream." Repeated Mami once again with the same monotone voice.

"I. am-"

She started, but then realized her partner had a point. Lots of things didn't just add up. Clocks reading nonsense, cookies disappearing, no recollection of what happened earlier this day… Yes, everything around her was a dream. It wasn't real. Not anymore…

"It's not your world anymore, Kyoko. Yours lies behind that door and beyond this apartment."

And it was with those worlds that the thread was pulled. The rest of the realization set in quickly, smashing through the barrier of denial and dispelling the confusion. The reality was that Mami was dead. Dead because of her, because she ran away one of those nights and never returned. Had she stayed with her she could have done something on that day, protect her from that Witch...

"I don't want to leave. I already ran away once." Replied Kyoko. "I don't want to lose you again." She begged, her voice cracking.

"The past is final. You can't swim the rivers long dried." Sounded the reply, tearing at the redhead's heart.

The room lit up again, growing brighter than before- and blurry.

"I'm sorry about what happened. I would have given anything to change it." She said after a while, hoping that perhaps, this could be the spell, the magical words that would reverse it all and allow her to dream on, dream about the times and lives long gone.

"I know. But that doesn't mean a thing now, does it?" Her tone shifted, sounding of sadness, yet at the same time the acknowledgement of the cold and inarguable facts.

Silence descended upon the place once more. They could have talked a lot more, about many other things, for a much longer time, but they both knew it- there actually wasn't anything more to say now.

Mami Tomoe finally lifted up her gaze from the book, looking into the other Magi's eyes.

"You have to let it go." She said in her usual tone, polite yet firm. "You have someone else to protect now.

"How do you know?" Kyoko looked at her surprised. "You had never–"

"Lady must have her secrets." She smiled mysteriously. "It would be very rude to leave her alone, don't you think?"

Kyoko nodded without a word, feeling her throat tightening.

"Farewell, Kyoko." said Mami.

"Does that mean that…?" Replied the redhead, but did not dare finish the sentence, the implication of it being too terrible all in itself.

"We'll meet again one day. I promise." The response calmed her down somewhat. Mami-san promises were always watertight.

The golden-haired girl snapped the book shut. Brightness flooded the apartment, white as a view from a window on a wintry morning.

She wanted to leap, throw herself at her, hold her tight and never let her go, but the floor escaped her feet. She started falling, as if the whole place existed in a limbo, a weird place between the worlds.

* * *

Kyoko awoke, sitting up in bed. Outside the window the sun had yet to break through the gray clouds of early dawn, leaving the room still in partial darkness.

Still confused from waking up so suddenly she struggled to remember where she was, until she looked around. A girl with short blue hair was sleeping by her side, with her naked back turned.

Everything had now become clear. She was in Sayaka's Miki bed, in her house. They had the place all to themselves last night and well…

Cold air brushed against her skin, reminded her she too was wearing nothing. Realizing that she lay down again and covered herself with the shared blanket.

Still wanting for more warmth and companionship she slid closer to the sleeping Magi and put arms around her waist, pulling her in.

_You were right Mami. _

_I still have someone I can't let down... _


End file.
